


Wonderful

by elrhiarhodan



Category: White Collar
Genre: A Universe Where Season Six Never Happened, All Elizabeth Wants Is Her Husband to Be Happy, Background Peter Burke/Elizabeth Burke - Freeform, Elizabeth Burke is SUCH an enabler, First Date, First Time, M/M, Neal Off The Tracker, Neal as a Private Citizen, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 11:22:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13589007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrhiarhodan/pseuds/elrhiarhodan
Summary: Peter Burke is nervous.  He's never dated a guy before.  But Elizabeth has told him to go for it.  She's given him every possible encouragement.  So he's going to do this right.  Flowers, check.  A good bottle of wine, check.  Condoms and lube ... yeah, he's got that, too.





	Wonderful

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rudigersmooch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudigersmooch/gifts).



> For Rudigersmooch who wanted Peter/Neal, with Peter being a bit nervous and inexperienced with being in a sexual relationship with another man. I hope you enjoy this!

Peter's standing in front of Neal's door, an unaccustomed flop sweat forming at the base of his spine. His palms are sticky and his mouth is dry. El's words are ringing in his ears, and he's trying to take some confidence in them.

_"Hon, it's not as if you haven't done anal before. In fact, we did it that way last Friday."_

_"And you couldn't sit comfortably until Sunday afternoon."_

_"And I enjoyed every moment of it."_

Peter knows that he _can_ do this. And that he _can_ satisfy Neal, and he's just panicking for no damn good reason. And it's not like he's going to walk into Neal's apartment and demand that they have sex. Hell, they haven't even had a first date yet, so he's really kind of jumping the gun.

Finally, after standing there for a good five minutes, Peter shifts the roses and the wine bottle into one hand and raps on the door. He can hear Neal moving around, but when the door opens, Peter still feels a bit caught out.

"You knocked, Peter." Neal's laughing at him. "You never knock. Or if you do, you don't wait for me to answer."

Peter pushes past Neal, trying to find his footing. "I'm turning over a new leaf, okay? You're off the anklet; I'm not holding your leash anymore." He hadn't intended those words to be suggestive, but they certainly sound that way. A flush climbs over his face and Peter bites his lip, feeling like an idiot.

Neal doesn't come back with an equally suggestive rejoinder. He just stands there, looking at Peter with a strange, unreadable expression on his face.

"What's the matter?"

"You brought me flowers?"

Peter looks at those flowers, a bunch of tiny yellow roses in a mass of greenery. He holds them out to Neal, feeling a million kinds of foolish. "Yeah. I saw them and I thought …" Peter shakes his head. "I don't know what I thought."

Neal doesn't mock him. He takes the bouquet and touches ones of the buds. "Thank you. I can't remember if anyone's given me flowers before."

"Yeah, well – you deserve them." God, Peter feels like such an idiot. He hasn't been this emotionally clumsy since he'd started courting Elizabeth.

And then Neal blushes and seems equally awkward. "Let me just get a vase."

After watching Neal arrange the flowers in a vase, the results looking like something that might come from a professional florist, Peter offers Neal the bottle of wine. "You might enjoy this, too." He'd seriously splurged on the bottle of Italian red, the Barolo that Neal is so fond of.

Now he gets a tiny bit of mocking. "What, no screw top? What is this world coming to?" Then Neal looks at the label. "Peter – this is too much." 

"No, actually, it's just right." In a heartbeat, his anxiety vanishes. Neal is just as nervous and unsure. "You deserve it, after all the cheap plonk I've pushed on you. You're not my CI anymore."

Neal ducks his head. "No, I'm not."

Peter takes the bottle out of Neal's hand and sets it on the counter. "You've always been my friend, right from the beginning. But now, you're something more to me. Something essential and important."

Neal looks at him, his eyes wide, face pale except for two flags of high color on his cheeks. 

Peter shakes his head. "No, I need to correct that. You've _always_ been important and essential to me. From the beginning. I fought it for a long time. It frightened me."

"Now you know how I've felt, Peter." Neal reaches out to him. "You've had such power over me."

"Not anymore." Peter smiles and takes Neal's hand. "You're a free man, Neal."

"Emotional power, that's what I mean. I really never cared about the legal power you held over me. Yeah, you were the FBI agent who could send me back to prison with a single phone call, but I never believed you'd do that. That never mattered to me."

"Why?"

"Because I trusted you, I've always trusted you. You've always been the one person I could rely on to never sell me out."

Peter can't help but remember what Neal – drugged out and sky-high – had once told him. _"You're the only one. The only one I can trust."_ He's spend a lot of emotional capital trying to prove to Neal that he's been worth of that trust.

"You've held my heart since the beginning, Peter. You were always everything I ever wanted and everything I could never have."

"You can have me now, Neal." Peter pulls Neal into his arms. They've hugged before, he's put his hands on Neal before, but it's never felt quite like this. Never so freighted, so full of meaning. "I love you, in every sense of the word."

Neal buries his face in Peter's neck. "I don't deserve this."

"Why? Why wouldn't you deserve love? My love?"

"How many times have I screwed you over? How many times did I put your career on the brink?"

"How many times did you save my life? My sanity? My marriage? You've sacrificed everything for me, Neal."

Neal shudders against Peter, and Peter strokes his back. "Nothing that wasn't worth losing."

"James is still your father."

"James is a murdering liar and I'd rather be like Moz and pretend that I have spies as parents rather than call that bastard my father." Neal pulls away and gathers up the threads of his righteous indignation. He rubs his nose with the back of his hand and Peter can't help but be charmed. "And can we please talk about something else?"

"Such as?"

"Why Elizabeth agreed that it's okay for us to date."

Peter doesn't bother searching through the kitchen drawers for a corkscrew. Something so essential to Neal's daily life is kept right on the counter. He takes care opening the bottle of wine, a deliberate delaying tactic. "We should let this breathe for a bit."

Neal smiles, a smirk actually. "And you pretend to be such a savage."

Peter ignores the little dig. "My wife is the most wonderful woman in creation. She knows that love is meant to be shared, that the human heart has an infinite capacity. She's always know how much I've admired you - "

"Admired me?" Neal raises an eyebrow at that.

"I like smart, I always have. And I don't think I've ever met anyone smarter."

Neal ducks his head, clearly embarrassed at the praise.

"But it's not just your smarts, Neal. It's you. She's seen how you've made me a better man, a better husband. A better person. And she can see how much you care for me. She's always wanted our happiness." Peter lets that sink in.

It takes a moment before Neal realizes just what Peter's said. "Always?"

"Since the beginning, Neal. Since you threw yourself out of that judge's chamber and ran to me when you could have disappeared into the wind. She actually been more impatient about you getting off the tracker and out from the FBI's thumb than you have, if that's actually possible."

"You're kidding me."

"Does this look like the face of a kidder?" Peter puts on his serious business face, the one that never fails to intimidate.

Except that Neal laughs. "Okay, okay. But still, Elizabeth enabling us is still hard to wrap my head around. I would never, ever, do anything to damage what you two have. You are both too important to me."

Peter sighs and decides to go for the nuclear option. "She bought me condoms and lube." He pulls the drug store bag out of his jacket pocket and fishes out the receipt. "See – paid for on E. Burke's Mastercard."

Neal turns bright red and blinks. " _Two_ boxes of condoms? I don't know what to say…"

Peter shrugs, not really sure what Neal's getting at. "Maybe they were on sale? You know that El can never resist a BOGOF."

Neal puts down the receipt and starts laughing. "Jesus Christ, Peter – you …" Neal can't finish the sentence, he's laughing so hard. 

Peter realizes just how ridiculous that excuse is and bites his lip in embarrassment. Then he understands why Neal had seemed so appalled. "Yeah – that's a little ambitious, even for me."

Neal manages to get control of himself. "You weren't lying when you said that El was a little eager for us to get together. Twenty-four condoms on the first date – I'm sore just thinking about it." There's still laughter in his voice.

"And I'm being awfully presumptuous, aren't I? I mean – this is our first date and I probably should be presuming anything."

Neal pulls him into his arms. "Presume away. This might be our first 'official' date, but I've been waiting for you for four years. I've wanted you for twice as long."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. You were so damn hot in that terrible suit, trying to reassure me that my money was safe in that bank. I hoped you'd give me a show with that lollipop."

"You were such a little shit, Neal." Peter smiles at the memory. "Still are."

"I aim to please."

"You know what would please me right now?"

"Another lime-green lollipop?" Neal's smirking now.

"No, a kiss. I'd really like to kiss you, Neal." Peter lets out a deep breath. He's never kissed a man before, but he so desperately wants to kiss Neal.

"I'd like that, too."

Peter tilts his head down and brushes Neal's lips. That first contact is electric and he pulls away for a moment.

"Okay there?" Neal asks, his tone throaty. 

"More that okay." Peter leans in again and is a bit more forceful. It's a little awkward at first, since Peter hasn't kissed anyone with romantic intent except Elizabeth in a very long time. And Neal, with his late-day scruff and firm lips and his height and short hair and no boobs is definitely not Elizabeth. But then Neal's lips go soft and he's letting Peter take control. Peter can feel Neal's heart racing, or maybe that's his own. It doesn't matter.

What does matter are Neal's hands holding his head close, Neal's fingers threading through his hair. Neal's mouth opening under his, an invitation to Peter to take everything that he's denied himself for so long in the name of decency.

Peter puts an arm around Neal's waist, steading them, holding Neal closer than he's ever held him, feeling the hard shock of Neal's erection against his own. A part of Peter's brain keeps cataloging the differences between Neal and El, not to find one or the other wanting, but to make note of what his body finds pleasing about both of them. And the answer is simple – Peter finds everything pleasing.

It's as if Neal Caffrey has been made for him. 

The kiss is endless in its perfection and Peter could feast forever on Neal's lips. It's only when Neal's hands, hot and hard, worm their way under Peter's shirt and clench against his back that Peter breaks their kiss. He meets Neal's eyes and licks his lips. They feel different, like the are not quite his own anymore.

Neal copies the gesture and whispers, "Wow." 

"Yeah. _Wow_."

Neal pulls him towards the bed, or maybe they go hand-in-hand, because Peter needs no persuasion. As they do a messy job of removing each other's clothes, Peter laughs.

"What's so funny?" Neal pulls Peter down onto the bed.

"Just thinking that it's a very good thing that I waited until you were off the tracker and no longer working for the FBI before doing this. I probably would have gotten us both sent to prison – for public indecency."

Neal kisses him again. "Never fear, I'm sure that El would have figured a way to break us out."

__

FIN


End file.
